


When Wishing Waned

by anotetofollow



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gift Fic, Haven (Dragon Age), Light Angst, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - In Hushed Whispers, Pre-Relationship, Redcliffe (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24093655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotetofollow/pseuds/anotetofollow
Summary: After recruiting the mages at Redcliffe, Tevi and Sera each have their own demons to deal with.
Relationships: Female Adaar/Sera, Female Inquisitor/Sera
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	When Wishing Waned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [southwarden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/southwarden/gifts).



It was bright in Haven that day, the snow frozen into brittle sheets that crunched beneath Tevi’s boots as she walked. The town was busier now than it ever had been. More merchants had arrived to supply the Inquisition's swelling ranks, their bright-painted wagons lining the square, and every room available was now full of visiting nobles and their entourages. The mages had made camp outside the eastern gate, and more than one soldier had already complained about their proximity to their new allies. She had let Josephine deal with that particular squabble.

Tevi had been on edge since her return from Redcliffe. Being forced to decide whether or not to enlist Fiona’s people had shredded her nerves, and she was constantly worried that it would prove to be the wrong decision. Being named the Herald of Andraste had been bad enough, but she had at least assumed that the title was for show, and that she herself would be nothing more than a figurehead. The weight of responsibility placed on her now was unbearable. The right and left hands of the Divine, a seasoned Knight-Commander, an ambassador with half of Thedas under her thumb, and yet she was the one expected to make the tough calls. Well, if she picked wrong, that was on them. She had never asked for any of this.

And then there had been Redcliffe itself, and all that had happened there. You saw magic, as a mercenary, more often than regular folk, whether it was your allies or your enemies who were using it. But Tevi had never seen anything like the future Alexius had torn open. The migraine hum of red lyrium, the distant shrieks of demons, the warping of time itself. Whatever occurred at the Conclave must have been bad, but at least she barely remembered it. Redcliffe was clear in her mind still, every corrupted inch of it etched inside her eyelids when she tried to sleep.

She walked around the perimeter of the town, ducking her head into the tavern and the stables as she passed, looking for a tell-tale flash of red and yellow. Nothing. It took another half an hour of searching before Tevi found her. Sera was standing in a copse of trees outside Haven’s walls, shooting arrow after arrow into the woods. The trunks of the firs were already peppered with their shafts, the fletching fluttering slightly in the mountain breeze.

Sera looked up as she saw Tevi approaching, then shook her head and walked away. “No.”

“Sera,” Tevi called after her. “Wait.”

She didn’t look back. “No. Don’t want to talk. Not to you.”

“Why?” The anger in Sera’s voice surprised her. They had not argued recently, as far as she could recall, had not even seen each other since their return to Haven. “What have I done?”

“Nothing,” Sera said. “Not yet.”

Tevi’s stride was longer than Sera’s was, and she quickly caught up with her. She caught the elf gently by the shoulder and turned her around, pointedly meeting her eye. “Alright,” she said. “Can you at least tell me what I might do wrong? That way I can avoid it.”

Sera seemed to consider this for a moment. Her mouth, usually so animated, was set in a hard line, and the cold had left high spots of colour in her cheeks. “S’pose so,” she said quietly. “But not here. It’s freezing. Need warm for this.”

“You want to go to the Singing Maiden?”

“No,” Sera shook her head. “Need private too. There booze in your room?”

“Think so. There’s some brandy left from when I—”

“That’ll do. Let’s go.” She turned on her heel and walked away, not waiting to see if Tevi followed.

She did follow, of course. Sera didn’t speak a word as they made their way through the now-bustling streets of Haven, said nothing as she let herself into Tevi’s rooms and sat down on the bed, knees drawn to her chest and boots muddying the sheets. Tevi fetched the brandy without needing to be asked, poured two glasses and handed one to Sera. She downed it in one, then held the cup out for more.

“Ready to talk now?” Tevi asked, sitting down on the edge of the mattress as she refilled Sera’s glass.

“Sort of,” Sera said. “Not really. That’s the point, though. I don’t want to talk. Know that you’ll try and I… some things aren’t worth knowing.” She took a pillow from the bed and hugged it close to her, resting her chin against it. Tevi knew that Sera was small compared to her — everyone was small, compared to her — but she had never been more aware of it than now. The elf was curling in on herself, shrinking down to almost to nothing. It wasn’t like her, Tevi thought. Sera took up space, she was effusive, she made noise and trouble and claimed all she touched as her territory.

“What things, Sera?” Tevi prompted. “What don’t you want to know?”

Sera was quiet for a long moment before speaking. “That mage bloke,” she said. “The one we brought back from Redcliffe. He said… he said you saw the future. _Went_ there.”

“That’s true,” Tevi admitted. “Though I’m still trying to get my head around it.”

“Not finished.” Sera was nibbling at her lip, hard enough to split the chapped skin. “You spoke to Blackwall too. He told me after. Said you saw him. Saw him… changed. Different.”

Tevi started to understand where this was going. “Ah. Yeah, I did.”

“If he was there, and I was there, and you saw him, that means one thing,” she said. “Wait, no, two things. Either you saw me too, all fucked and red and broken, or you didn’t.” Sera drew in a breath. “Alive and tortured, or killed by frigging demons. What’s worse?”

“I—”

“No,” Sera shook her head. “This is what I’m saying. I don’t want to know.”

“So I won’t tell you.”

“But I do, as well. That’s the thing.” She gripped the feather pillow hard enough to whiten her knuckles. “Because knowing might help, yeah? If I survived, that means I could do it again. Means I’m strong enough. But if I didn’t, then best run now, right? Shit. I didn’t think fixing things would mean all this. Didn’t think it would be this fucking hard.”

“Neither did I,” Tevi said quietly, taking a sip of her brandy. It burned going down.

“It’s weird.” Sera’s voice had calmed a little. “You’ve seen me — or you haven’t — somewhere else. Some _when_ else. It’s strange, innit? Having you know bits of me that I don’t. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“If you want to know I’ll tell you,” Tevi said, hoping beyond hope that Sera would turn her down. She didn’t want to think about what she’d seen in the future, let alone describe it. _Alive and tortured, or killed by frigging demons. Both, Sera, you were both. You were red-eyed and haunted in a cell, you were scared and begging in the dark, you were tossed aside like a ragdoll when the demons came. I didn’t just see you dead, I saw you_ die. _Please don’t make me say it._

“No,” Sera said at last. Her voice was firm. “No. Future didn’t happen. Won’t happen, right? Not now that magister prick’s in your dungeon. So not worth thinking about.”

Tevi let out a low sigh of relief, feeling her shoulders relax. “I think that’s smart,” she said. “Maker, if I could wipe the whole thing from my head I would.” She shivered as an image came to her unbidden; a knife drawn across a throat, an empty dock wreathed in shadow, a scream cutting through the dark.

“Hey,” Sera said. “Here’s me talking crap about not seeing.” She put the pillow down, turned her body to face Tevi. “You _saw_. Least I get to pick what I know. Anyone asked how you are yet?”

“Sort of,” Tevi said, then realised that was a lie. She’d been asked a lot about _what_ happened and _why_ in the past few days, but no one had really stopped to enquire about how she was feeling. That was fair enough, she supposed — her advisors were just that, not friends like her mercenary comrades had been — but it wasn’t the easiest thing, talking about an event in military terms when the very thought of it made you sick. She knocked back the rest of the brandy and put the glass down on a low table.

“‘Sort of’,” Sera repeated. “So no, then, only polite. Shit. Even me forgetting. Well then, here’s me, asking. How’s your head after all that?”

Tevi shrugged expansively. “Well I’m not _great_. People keep talking about what happens if we fail but it’s… abstract, you know? Or it was. I’ve seen the world that’s left if the Inquisition screws up. If _I_ screw up. It was a lot of pressure to start with, but now…” she trailed off, sighing. “Everyone expects me to know what to do because of this.” She splayed out the fingers on her left hand, a narrow line of green light radiating from her palm.

“Yeah,” Sera said. “No offence, but I don’t understand why. Putting you in charge, I mean. All because you got blown up? Doesn’t make you good at it.”

“Right?!” Tevi said, a little too loudly. “Maker, _shit_ , someone finally said it.” She fell back onto the mattress, rested her hand against her forehead. “I keep waiting for someone to figure out I’m not qualified for this. I never _asked_ to be a leader, you know?”

“I know that,” Sera said. “Not sure the others do. But it’s all good, yeah? If you wanted to be in charge I’d be worried.”

“Why?”

Sera shifted around and moved to lie alongside her. Six inches of space separated them, but Tevi was painfully aware of how close Sera was. She could smell the smoke-and-honey scent of her hair, could see the slow rise of her chest as she breathed.

“Only pricks want to be big,” Sera said. “So they can throw their weight around. You hate it, which means no throwing. Or less throwing, anyway. Unless you get all drunk on power and start loving it.”

Tevi smirked. “Can’t see that happening. If there’s one thing power makes me feel, it’s really, _really_ sober.”

“Ha. Sounds rubbish.” When Sera laughed it made the bed shake a little. “Don’t change, yeah? I like you you. You’re different. Good different.”

Tevi was pleased that they were both looking up at the ceiling, so Sera couldn’t see how the colour rose in her throat. “I’ll try my best.”

For a while they just laid there, inches apart, listening to the sounds drifting in from the street outside. Apart from the tension of having Sera so close to her, Tevi had not felt this relaxed in weeks. For once no one was making demands of her, asking her opinion or insisting she give a full report. Here she just _was_. 

“We walked and waked where willows...” Tevi said quietly.

Sera flinched like she’d been burned. “What?”

Tevi turned to look at her. “Just something I heard once.”

“Right,” Sera frowned. “That’s wrong though. Doesn’t go like that.”

“Do you remember the rest of it?”

“Yeah.” She laid back and closed her eyes. “When waked, we walked where willows wail, whose withered windings want wassail. We weary-worn with wited wale, were wavering with wanion ward. When wishing waned, we wighters warred. When wolfen wan, we wastrels warred.” Her voice, usually so sharp and staccato, lilted gently over the words.

Tevi smiled to herself. “What does it mean?”

“Like I know,” Sera snorted. “Just bollocks, innit? Pretty, though.”

“Yeah,” Tevi said, glancing at her while she wasn’t looking. “Yeah, it is.”


End file.
